Temari: Scattered flowers

November 13, 2012

Today I started a design from Hana Temari Nyumon (Flower Temari Beginner’s Course), the book by Yoko Tokohara. Mine, like hers, is 31cm circumference, with a dark green mari. For ages, I’ve hesitated because I wasn’t sure if this the flowers were stitched over the bands, or if the bands were stitched afterwards. After examining the colour photo (p.24-25), I’ve decided to go with stitching the bands at the finish.

I started with a green wrapping thread bought from colleague Rebecca in Perth and wrapped a green tencel thread of similar colour in a C8 marking, with the idea of removing the marking thread later. They look teal in the photo but are actually a dark, bright green. I’m following sensei Tokohara’s colour scheme: three flowers in primary colours (red, yellow, blue) at both North and South Poles, each done double-threaded with one row of dark, mid and light each, with a single-threaded final row in white, all in #5 pearl cotton. I noticed that the initial stitch of gold thread is parallel to one of the marking threads. In retrospect, I’ll use a 4cm circle paper template to get my gold Cosmo threads the right length. It’s important not to compromise on the brightness of the gold in the centre of each flower, because that luminosity is important.

Design-wise, this is a variation on the tradition of flowers-in-a-basket. While flowers are used to denote Summer, leaves are stitched in a basket to represent Autumn. It’s an opportunity for temari stitchers to imitate a woven bamboo background to kiku/chrysanthemum flowers (see ball #4 on pp.24-25, gold metallic thread on black mari) or even an asanoha background (red thread on black mari, as in ball#2 on p.24).